1701

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Year 1701 (MDCCI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar. In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Tuesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. It was the first year of the 18th century.

Events

January–June

• January 1 – First day of the 18th century.
• January 12 – Parts of Netherlands adopt the Gregorian calendar
• January 18 – The electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia becomes the Kingdom of Prussia as Elector Frederick III is proclaimed King Frederick I. Prussia remains part of the Holy Roman Empire. It consists of Brandenburg, Pomerania and East Prussia. Berlin is the capital.
• January 28 – The Chinese storm Dartsedo.
• January – Robert Walpole enters the Parliament of England and soon makes his name as a spokesman for Whig policy.
• March 8 – Mecklenburg-Strelitz is created as a north German duchy.
• March – The War of the Spanish Succession begins. It is an international retaliation to Louis XIV’s acceptance in 1700 of the Spanish crown on behalf of his grandson Philip of Anjou, who became Philip V, first Bourbon king of Spain. Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor forms the Grand Alliance with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Savoy and Prussia. Louis XIV allies France with Spain and Bavaria.
• April 21 – In Japan, the young daimyo Asano Naganori is ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). A group of 47 samurai of his service begin planning to avenge his death.
• May 23 – After being convicted of murdering William Moore and for piracy, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
• June 24 – The Act of Settlement 1701 is passed by the Parliament of England to exclude the Catholic Stuarts from the British monarchy. Under its terms, King William III, childless, would be succeeded by Queen Mary II's sister Princess Anne and her descendants. If Anne should have no descendants, she would be succeeded by Sophia of Hanover and her descendants (hence the Hanoverian Succession in 1714).

July–December

• July 9 – Crossing of the Düna: Following his victories over Denmark and Russia in 1700, Charles XII of Sweden escalates the conflict in the Great Northern War by an invasion of Poland. The Swedes defeat the army of Saxony (then a Polish territory) at the River Dvina.
• July 24 – Foundation of a French emporium named Fort Ponchartrain (later to become Detroit).
• August 4 – The Great Peace of Montreal is signed, ending 100 years of war between the Iroquois Confederacy and New France and its Huron and Algonquian allies. Formerly allied with the English, the treaty assured the Iroquois would be neutral if France and England were to ever resume hostilities.
• September 6 – Death of King James VII and II (1633–1701) in exile. His supporters, the Jacobites, turn to his son James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766), later called "The Old Pretender", whom they recognise as James VIII and III.
• October 9 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Date unknown

• English agriculturalist Jethro Tull invents a drill for planting seeds in rows.
• The Philharmonic Society (Academia philharmonicorum) is established in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Births

• January 27 – Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, German historian and theologian (d. 1790)
• January 28 – Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (d. 1774)
• February 14 – Enrique Flórez, Spanish historian (d. 1773)
• March 18 – Niclas Sahlgren, Swedish merchant and philanthropist (d. 1776)
• April 9 – Giambattista Nolli, Italian architect and surveyor (d. 1756)
• April 27 – King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (d. 1773)
• May 14 – William Emerson, English mathematician (d. 1782)
• May 18 – Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, English aristocrat, philanthropist and cricket patron (d. 1750)
• August 4 – Thomas Blackwell, Scottish classical scholar (d. 1757)
• October 15 – Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, Canadian saint (d. 1771)
• October 18 – Charles le Beau, French historian (d. 1778)
• November 5 – Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (d. 1785)
• November 10 – Johann Joseph Couven, German Baroque architect (d. 1763)
• November 27 – Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer (d. 1744)

Deaths

• January 14 – Tokugawa Mitsukuni, Japanese warlord (b. 1628)
• March 15 – Jean Renaud de Segrais, French writer (b. 1624)
• April 4 – Joseph Haines, English entertainer and author
• April 21 – Asano Naganori, Japanese warlord (b. 1667)
• May 23 – Captain William Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645)
• June 2 – Madeleine de Scudéry, French writer (b. 1607)
• July 7 – William Stoughton, American judge at the Salem witch trials (b. 1631)
• August 20 – Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet, English playwright (b. 1639)
• August 22 – John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath, English royalist statesman (b. 1628)
• September 15 – Edmé Boursault, French writer (b. 1638)
• September 16 – King James II of England/James VII of Scotland (b. 1633)
• October 3 – Joseph Williamson, English politician (b. 1633)
• November 5 – Charles Gerard, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, French-born English politician (b. c.1659)
• December 21 – Sir Hugh Paterson, 1st Baronet, Baronet of Bannockburn (b. 1659)

References

• War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1714